Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I am pleased to confirm that, as I have said in the past, the interim review is due to be published in the spring of 2014. I will be most pleased to discuss the findings of that review with Members of the House, who I suspect will be keen to have that dialogue.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, the National Debtline has announced today that the most rapid growth in personal debt is in the area of rent arrears. In the context of the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, will my noble friend agree to examine on a regular basis the way in which personal debt is accounted for by rent arrears and to identify exactly why that is and what remedies might be brought in to suppress the increase of personal debt in this way?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right that personal debt in this country is a major problem. There has been a series of important reviews of that in recent weeks. I am looking at it very closely in the context in particular of the introduction of universal credit. That is one of the factors in the review that I mentioned in response to the last question and I will keep it very much in mind.